Breakdown of Njegov djed je mislio da su stari kraljevi pili vino.
biti
to be (sam, si, je)
star
old
misliti
to think
piti
to drink
vino
wine
djed
grandfather
njegov
his
da
that (conjunction)
kralj
king
Questions & Answers about Njegov djed je mislio da su stari kraljevi pili vino.
Why does the word for kings become kraljevi instead of just kralji?
Kralj is a short, one-syllable masculine noun. In Croatian, most one-syllable masculine nouns add an extra piece—either -ov- or -ev-—before the plural ending -i. Because kralj ends in a "soft" consonant (lj), it takes -ev-, resulting in kraljevi.
The word djed (grandfather) is also one syllable. How would we make it plural using this rule?
Because djed ends in a regular or "hard" consonant (d), it takes the -ov- insert instead of -ev-. If the sentence were about grandfathers, the plural would be djedovi.
Why is the helper verb su placed right after da, instead of next to the main verb pili?
The word su is an enclitic, meaning it's a "weak" word that strongly prefers the second position in its clause. In the second half of this sentence, the clause starts with da (that). Therefore, su naturally drops into the second spot right after da, separating it from stari kraljevi and pili.
Since vino (wine) is the direct object being drunk, why doesn't its ending change?
Vino is indeed in the accusative case here because it is the direct object. However, vino is a neuter noun. A helpful rule to remember is that for all neuter nouns, the accusative form looks exactly the same as the standard dictionary form (nominative). So it stays vino.
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